.^1 

li5 



^' 




Class XaLS- 



TESTIMONIAL OF RESPECT 



BAR OF NI]W-YOE,K, 



TO THE MENIOKY OF 



V 



Hon. DANIEL S DICKINSON. 



lilOGRAPHY, PROCEEDINGS IN TliE COURTS, MEETINCS UP 
. THE BAR, ADDRESSES, RESOLUTIONS, AND 
FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 



- ♦ i»«^ a >■ 



NEW-YOEk : 

OT:orcGE F. Nesbitt & Co., Prjn'tzrs and Stationers, 
Corner of Pearl and Piue Streets. 




/ 






TESTIMONIAL OF RESPECT 



BAR OF NEW-YORK, 



TO THE MEMOKT OF 



Hon. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 



BIOGRAPHY, PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURTS, MEETINGS OF 

THE BAR, ADDRESSES, RESOLUTIONS, AND 

FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 




f — ~^ — -^ ^^ ^ 



NEW-YORK : 

(jeorge p. Nesbitt & Co.. Printers and Stationers, 
Corner of Pearl aud Pine Streets. 

1866. 



BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 



Daniel Stevens Dickinson was born at Goshen, Conn., Sept 
11th, 1800. His father, who was a farmer, removed to Chenango 
County, N. Y., in 1807, and settled in what is now the town of 
Guilford. The subject of this notice was reared upon a farm in a 
new settlement until about twenty years of age, with no better 
advantages for obtaining an education than such as the indifferent 
common schools of the section supplied. Inspired, however, by a 
determination to raise himself to an honorable position among his 
fellow-men, the hours which could be spared from manual toil 
were devoted to the acquisition of knowledge, in the eager pur- 
suit of which every obstacle vanished as it was approached. So 
ardently did the young student follow the well-chosen path, that, 
at the age of twenty-one, he was fully qualified to undertake the 
responsibility of instructing others, and, in the autumn of 1821, 
he entered upon the duties of a teacher at Wheatland, Monroe 
County, N. Y. Mr. Dickinson followed this vocation for many 
years with marked success, having in the meantime thoroughly 
prepared himself, without the aid of an instructor, to teach the 
Latin language and the higher branches of mathematics in select 
and academic schools. During vacations, and at other and irreg- 
ular periods while he was engaged as a teacher, he was also exten- 
sively employed in practical land surveying. 

In 1822 he was married to Lydia Knapp, a lady whose personal 
and intellectual charms have won the admiration and esteem of all 
who enjoyed the privilege of her acquaintance. Like her illus- 
trious husband, she is equally fitted to gladden the cottage of the 
lowly and to adorn the mansion of the rich. After his marriage, 
Mr. Dickinson's time was chiefly occupied in the study of the law, 
to the practice of which he was admitted in 1828, Guilford, his 
former place of residence, being chosen as the spot for com- 
mencing the duties of his new profession. 



4 BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 

In 1831 he removed to Binghamton, N. Y., liis late place ot 
residence, and at once entered upon an extensive practice, and in 
his own and neighboring circuits he met and successfully com- 
peted with the ablest lawyers of the State. In 1830 he had so 
won the popular favor that he was elected to the State Senate for 
four years ; and, though one of its youngest members and com- 
paratively inexperienced respecting the customs of public life, he 
speedily became the acknowledged leader of his party — the Dem- 
ocratic Jacksonian — winning its confidence by his genial elo- 
quence, and retaining it by his uncompromising integrity. 

In 1840 he was a candidate for Lieutenant-Governor, but was 
defeated in the general overthrow of his party that year. In 
1842 he received the nomination for the same oflice, and was 
elected to the position by a large majority. As Senator, liis 
speeches upon the usury laws attracted universal attention. The 
Senate, during the time that he was a member, and, as Lieutenant- 
Governor, its presiding ofl&cer, was the Court for the Correction of 
Errors, and Mr. Dickinson gave frequent opinions upon the grave 
questions which came before that court for final adjudication, 
many of which may be found in the law reports of the day. 

In 1844 Mr. Dickinson was a State elector of the Democratic 
party, and as such, cast his vote for James K. Polk and George 
M. Dallas, for the ofl&ces of President and Vice-President of the 
United States. 

At the expiration of his term as Lieutenant Governor, in Decem- 
ber, 1844, he was appointed b)^ Governor Bouck to fill a vacancy 
for one session in the United States Senate, and, on the meeting 
of the Legislature, the appointment was not only ratified, but was 
extended so as to embrace a full term of six years from the 4th 
of March, 1845. During the period of his service in the United 
States Senate, he took a conspicuous part in the most important 
debates of that august body, and held, for a number of years, the 
post of Chairman of the Committee on Finance, one of the most 
dignified and responsible positions for which a Senator can 
be selected. Upon the exciting questions of the day which 



BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 5 

were then seriously threatening the peace of the country, Mr. 
Dickinson took the conservative side, and strenuously appealed 
for entire non-intervention in all matters relating to slavery. 

In the National Democratic Convention, held at Baltimore in 
1852, he received the vote of Virginia and some other scattering 
ballots, for President, but being himself a delegate favoring the 
nomination of General Cass, whose name was yet before the con- 
vention, Mr. Dickinson withdrew his own name ; and, in declin- 
ing the honor which, entirelj^ unexpected to himself, so large and 
influential a portion of the convention was desirous to confer 
upon him, he delivered an impromptu address, the language 
of which proved, most conclusively, that the demands of po- 
litical integrity have a firmer hold upon the heart and intellect 
of the good man than the enticements of even a worthy am- 
bition. He hr.d been sent by the constituency of his State as 
a delegate in the interest of Mr. Cass — a prominent candidate 
for the highest office in the gift of the American people — 
and could not, therefore, be prevailed upon to stand in the 
way of the friend whom he had come to support, and he peremp- 
torily refused to permit his name to be used by the Convention. 
His speech on the occasion was a gem of its kind, and was 
universally commended for its classic beauty and elevated 
tone. During the delivery of this address, the ladies in the 
gallery threw such a shower of bouquets towards the speaker, 
that when he resumed his seat, he seemed to have been trans- 
ferred to a blooming parterre; he was literally surrounded by 
flowers. 

This noble, self-denying act of Mr. Dickinson — his declining 
to permit himself to become the candidate of his party because 
of the technical obligations arising from his relations with Gen- 
eral Cass — is a proof of the justness of the high reputation which 
he had everywhere established for unsullied honor in both his 
public and private career. 

In the same year (1852) Mr. Pierce nominated Mr. Dickinson 
for Collector of the Port of New-York, and he was unanimously 



6 BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 

confirmed by the Senate witliout reference ; but this honorable 
and lucrative position was declined. 

At the close of his term in the Senate, he returned to his pro- 
fession, which he prosecuted with vigor until the breaking out of 
the rebellion, when, having indicated his determination to sustain 
the Government, regardless of all considerations, he was called by 
the popular demand to almost every section of the loyal States, 
and devoted all his energies and the greater portion of his time, for 
the first three years of the insurrection, to addressing vast assem- 
blages of the people, and impressing upon them the necessity 
of ignoring party lines, and urging them to vindicate and defend, 
b}^ word and act, and with united efforts, the laws, the Constitu- 
tion, and the country. Perhaps a better estimate may be formed 
of the Herculean task which he imposed upon himself, when we 
state that, during the period referred to, he delivered in New- 
York, Pennsylvania and the New England States, over one hun- 
dred addresses, all of them, having a direct bearing upon the 
rebellion, and each one presenting prominent and distinctive 
features. 

In the performance of this immense labor, Mr. Dickinson not 
only displayed the unlimited resources of his intellect and his 
unwearied devotion to the highest interests of the nation, but he 
also beautified and enriched the fields of American eloquence 
and generously added to our stores of political wisdom. Some 
of the ripest scholars of our day have said concerning his phil- 
ippics ygainst the leaders of the rebellion (many of which were 
published and commented upon at the time they were delivered), 
that they compare favorably, both in substance and style, with 
the orations which Cicero pronounced in the Koman Senate 
against Catiline and his fraternity of conspirators. There can be 
no doubt that tlie earnest inspirations of this one brain and 
heart had very much to do with breaking and quelling the spirit 
of certain insurrectionary parties at the North, and in placing 
before the people the true condition of the country. Too much 
praise cannot be accorded to Mr. Dickinson for his great and 



BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 7 

successful efforts for the preservation of the Union, and the nation 
owes him a debt of gratitude which can only be paid by holding 
up his noble record for the emulation of coming generations. 

On the formation of the Union party, in 1861, Mr. Dickinson 
was nominated for Attorney-General of the State of New- York. 
Believing that the post was one in which his ripe experience 
might be made serviceable to the country, he accepted the nomi- 
nation, and was elected by about one hundred thousand majority. 

Mr. Lincoln nominated Mr. Dickinson to settle the Oregon 
boundary with Great Britain, and the nomination was unani- 
mously confirmed without reference — such was the confidence of 
the nation in his probity and patriotism. This nomination was, 
however, declined. 

In December of the same year. Governor Fenton (elect), learn- 
ing that Hon. Henry R Sel den's resignation would leave a 
vacancy in the Court of Appeals, tendered the position, in hand- 
some and generous terms, to Mr. Dickinson ; but, regulating his 
conduct by that high sense of duty which had ever been his 
unerring guide, he also declined this position. 

One of the last acts of Mr. Lincoln was to tender Mr. Dickin- 
son the office of District Attorney for the Southern District of 
New- York — unsolicited and unexpected — a post which was ac- 
cepted, and the duties of which he discharged to the satisfaction 
of the entire community. When the appointment was an- 
nounced — although it was felt that the requirements of the office 
were not such as to claim the constant exercise of his best abili- 
ties — it was universally recognized as a partial acknowledgment 
of the generous services which he had both the desire and the 
power to render to his country. 

As a debater, Mr. Dickinson occupied a front rank among the 
greatest of those who have labored for the unsullied preservation 
of the Constitution in the halls of Congress ; and even of his 
brilliant compeers in the forum, nearly all of whom have passed 
to a sacred inheritance, few ever attained such ^^nqualified 
power over popular assemblies. In argument he was clear, pro- 



8 BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 

found and logical ; his illustrations were frequent and always 
appropriate ; liis sentences were energetic, often replete with scath- 
ing satire, and not unfrequently embellished bj graceful allusions 
to classic poetry and mythology. His memory was excellent ; 
his fund of knowledge large, varied and always accessible. He 
drew from his abundance without hesitation or apparent effort, 
and so easily and naturally did his thoughts shape themselves into 
language, that his utterances appeared to his auditors like the 
overflowing of a rich and exhaustless fountain. 

And not only was Mr. Dickinson recognized as one of the 
most gifted of our public debaters, but he was one of our happi- 
est prose writers, and has also, in his hours of recreation, added 
to our literature several charming lyrical effusions. So successful 
have been his efforts in this direction, that had not his time been 
almost wholly consumed in the public service, and had he so 
chosen, he might have attained eminence as a poet. Even the 
few metrical compositions with which he has favored us, would 
have given him distinction, had not the inspirations of the occa- 
sional verse-writer been overshadowed by the more important 
and determined, though scarcely more successful, labors of the 
orator and statesman. 

In concluding this brief notice of the public career ot Mr. 
Dickinson, we only recognize a sentiment that has frequently 
been expressed in this and other countries, by saying that he was 
one of the most remarkable men to whom the Western Continent 
has given birth. Cradled and reared in comparative poverty — 
compelled, in a new and almost unbroken country, to battle his 
way from youth to manhood, amid want and manual toil, without 
the advantages of early education — we find him at fifty years of 
age, after filling and ably discharging the duties of sundry public 
positions, standing prominently among the Clays, Websters, 
Casses and Wrights, in the Senate of the United States, origi- 
nating and perfecting great and salutary public measures ; and 
not only commanding the respect and gratitude of the nation, but 
casting around him a high toned, healthy, moral influence — the 



BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S, DICKINSON. \) 

reflex of his own unblemished and spotless character — as an evi- 
dence of the esteem in which his services were held. 

It will be remembered bj many that Mr. Webster — though 
opposed to Mr. Dickinson upon most of the great issues of the 
country from 1830 to 1850 (these gentlemen being leaders of 
opposite parties) — tendered to his Democratic colleague, upon his 
retiring from the Senate, the following complimentary letter : 

" Washington, ^September 27ih, 1850. 

"My Dear Sir, — Our companionship in the Senate is dis- 
solved. After this long and most important session you are about 
to return to your home, and I shall try to find leisure to visit 
mine. I h3pe we may meet each other again, two months hence, 
for the tiischarge of our duties in our respective stations in the 
Government. But life is uncertain, and I have not felt willing 
to take leave of you without placing in your hands a note con- 
taining a few words which I wish to say to you. 

" In the earlier part of our acquaintance, my dear sir, occur- 
rences took place which I remember with constantly increasing 
regret and pain, because the more I have known you, the greater 
have been my esteem for your character and my respect for your 
talents. But it is your noble, able, manly and patriotic conduct 
in support of the great measures of this session which has en- 
tirely won my heart and received my highest regard. I hope you 
may live long to serve your country ; but I do not think you are 
ever likely to see a crisis in which you may be able to do so much 
either for your distinction or for the public good. You have 
stood where others have fallen ; you have advanced with firm 
and manly step where others have wavered, faltered and fallen 
back ; and, for one, I desire to thank you and to commend your 
conduct out of the fullness of an honest heart. 

This letter needs no reply ; it is, I am aware, of very little 
value ; but I have thought you might be willing to receive it, 
and perhaps to leave it where it would be seen by those who shall 
come after you. 



10 BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 

I praj jou, when you reach your own threshold, to remember 
me most kindly to your wife and daughter ; and I remain, my 
dear sir, with the truest esteem, your friend and obedient servant, 

DANIEL WEBSTER 
Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson. 

To this kind, friendly and commendatory letter, Mr. Dickinson 
made the following equally kind and friendly response : 

BiNGHAMTON, October 5th, 1850. 
My Dear Sir, — I perused and re-perused the beautiful note 
you placed in my hands, as I was about leaving Washington, 
with deeper emotion than I have ever experienced except under 
some domestic vicissitude. Since I learned the noble and gen- 
erous qualities of your nature, the unfortunate occurrence in our 
early acquaintance to which jou. refer has caused me many mo- 
ments of painful regret, and your confiding communication has 
furnished a powerful illustration of the truth, that " to err is hu- 
man, to forgive divine." Numerous and valued are the testimo- 
nials of confidence and regard which a somewhat extended 
acquaintance and lengthened public service have gathered around 
me, but among them all there is none to which my heart clings 
so fondly as this. I have presented it to my family and friends 
as the proudest passage in the history of an eventful life, and shall 
transmit it to my posterity as a sacred and cherished memento of 
friendshi}). I thank Heaven that it has fallen to my lot to be 
associated with yourself and others in resisting the mad current 
of disunion which threatened to overwhelm us ; and the recol- 
lection that my course upon a question so momentous has received 
the approbation of the most distinguished American statesman 
has more than satisfied my ambition. Believe me, my dear sir, 
that, of all the patriots who came forward in the evil day of their 
country, there was no voice so potential as your own. Others 
could buffet the dark and angry waves, but it was your strong 
arm that could roll them back from the holy citadel. 

May that beneficent Being who holds the destiny of men and 



HBMBBIB 



I re 



BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 11 

nations long spare you to the public service, and may your vision 

never rest upon the disjointed fragments of a convulsed and 

ruined Confederacy. I pray you to accept and to present to Mrs. 

Webster the kind remembrances of myself and family, and to 

believe me sincerely yours, 

D. S. DICKINSON. 
Hon. Daniel Webster. 

After the death of the great expounder of the Constitution, 
Mr. Everett, in looking over his papers for publication, noticed 
this interesting correspondence, and wrote to Mr. Dickinson re- 
questing his permission to incorporate the letters with his labors. 
The consent was of course given without qualification, although 
neither of their celebrated authors contemplated suck publicity for 
them, and they have become an important portion of the history 
of one of the most trying and eventful periods in the life of the 
Republic. 

Mr. Dickinson has always lived — as it were well that all men 
should live — for humanity and his country, rather than for him- 
self Though a man of untiring industry, and strictly frugal in 
all his habita, and though he has earned from his extensive and 
successive legal practice what would have made others rich and 
independent, his munificence and charities have always kept him 
in comparatively limited monetary circumstances. Be was in the 
sixty-fifth year of his age at the time of his death, but, as the 
result of sobriety and activit}^, was as hale and efficient, both phy- 
sically and intellectually, as at any period of his life, giving hope 
of many years of active usefulness — one to whom our country 
might safely turn for the protection of her flag, her Constitution, 
and her honor in any hour of peril which might await her. 

Profound in counsel, sagacious in detecting and repelling 
wrong, discreet and judicious both in rewards and punishments, 
but firm and resolute in the execution of his well-matured plans, 
had he been spared, he might have been appealed to with perfect 
reliance, in all important emergencies, both of a public and pri- 
vate character. 



12 BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 

Mr. Dickinson, in his old age, was, in appearance, one of the 
most venerable of men. His hair, worn long, was as white as 
snow, and his complexion exceedingly florid with the glow of 
health. Socially, he was one of the most loving of men, always 
gallant and attentive to the ladies, appreciating woman highly, and 
showing that he was " his mother's child." His love for home, 
country and its associations, formed a leading trait in his character. 
He had no vindictiveness or malice, but was a most spirited oppo- 
nent in the defence of a principle or a friend. He would, however, 
let the offender up the moment he begged pardon or manifested 
penitence. No public man ever left a prouder record of his acts, 
and few have retired from the chequered path of politics so 
universally esteemed by all parties. 

Mr. Dickinson was a very earnest speaker, and clothed his 
generally forcible and positive opinions and ideas in strong, ele- 
gant diction. Among his last speeches was that to a serenading 
party in Washington, in which he expressed his opinion of Presi- 
dent Johnson in a speech which, though brief, is a good illustra- 
tion of his style of oratory. He said : " Andrew Johnson is not 
a hot-bouse plant, but a mountain oak, which defies the fury of 
the thundergust ; intrepid, yet patient ; firm, but forgiving. I 
know him full well ; knew him for seven years ; was associated 
with him intimately. He is not versed in light or polite literature ; 
but he is one of the deepest, most profound political statesmen in 
the Union. It is his policy to lay broad and deep the principles, 
the pillars, of equality, for he believes in man's equality. I have 
full faith that he will make a wise, judicious President of the 
United States." 

That the friendship and esteem of the deceased statesman was 
fully appreciated and reciprocated by President Johnson, is mani- 
fest from the following telegram : 

Washington, April 13, 1866. 
Robert Murray^ Esq., United States Marshal, K Y. 

I learn with profound sorrow the death of Daniel S. Dickin- 



BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 13 

son, late District Attorney of the United States at New-York. 

The President authorizes me to tender his condolence to the 

family and friends of the loyal and single-hearted statesman, whose 

voice sounded like a clarion to animate patriots during the war 

we have so successfully passed without the loss of a State or a 

stain upon the national honor. 

WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 

One of Mr. Dickinson's peculiarities as a speaker was that of 
quoting freely from the Scriptures and sacred verse. In one of 
his last public speeches appears the embodiment of au old and 
familiar hymn, in a eulogy on our soldiers. The speech was de- 
livered at the reception of General Grant in this city, on June 7th, 
1865 ; and, in alluding to the soldiers, he said, with singularly 
affecting pathos : 

" Soldiers who are living will be honored by every man and 
woman ; those who are dead, their memories will be revered. 
Those who are living will now find rest and repose ; those who 
are sleeping will find rest. 

' On Ihe other side of Jordan, 
Where the tree of life is blooming, 

There is rest for you ; 
In the sweet fields of Eden 
There is rest for the weary, 

There is rest for you.' 

"There they will sleep until the great resurrection of the just. 

We will all be mustered in at the great day of account at the final 

roll-call. 

' We shall know each other there.' " 

Could there be any more fitting eulogy pronounced upon the 
now dead orator than his own words ? 

Mr. Dickinson died on Thursday, April 12th, 1866, at 8:30 P. 
M., at the residence of his son-in-law, Hon. Samuel G. Courtney. 

He was taken sick on Monday afternoon, after having been 
engaged during the day in the trial of the case of the steamship 
Meteor, in the United States Circuit Court. 

Nothing serious nor alarming appeared in his symptoms, until 



14 BIOGRAPHY OF HON, DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 

Thursday, about 11 A. M. In fact, he had risen from his bed on 
that morning and dressed and shaved himself, and had ordered 
his breakfast, saying that he felt much better ; and, as Mr. Court- 
ney left the house, he said to him in his pleasant and jocular way, 
" You may run the office to-day , but I shall be down there io-morrowy 
But before noon he was taken much worse, and soon became seri- 
ously and dangerously ill. The fatal character of the disease 
became evident and was made known to him by his medical at- 
tendants. At 5 o'clock P. M. he was sinking rapidly, but was in 
full possession of all his sensibilities and fixculties, and spoke of 
his approaching dissolution in a calm, resigned and Christian-like 
manner, with the members of his family present, Mrs. Dickinson, 
Mr, and Mrs. Courtney and Mr. Ausburn Birdsall. He continued 
to grow weaker and weaker, until about eight o'clock, when he 
requested to be raised in a sitting posture on his bed, and sup- 
ported by Mr. Courtney on the one side and Mr, Birdsall on the 
other, he appeared to breathe more easily and freely, and in that 
position he peacefully and calmly went to his final rest, " soothed 
and sustained by an unfaltering trust, like one who wraps the 
drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams," 
His decease was noticed by the Legislature of the State of New- 
York as follows : 

New- York Senate, Saturday, April 14, 1866. 
The following preamble and resolution were presented by Mr. 
Folger, and seconded by Mr, H. C. Murphy, and unanimously 
adopted : 

Whereas, The Senate, filled with niouruful recollections, brought by the return 
of the day on which Abraham Lincoln met his violent death, has received an 
additional sadness from the sudden decease of the Hon, Daniel S. Dickinso.v, 
formerly President of this body, as well as the worthy incumbent of many offices 
of honor and trust under the State and nation : 

Resolved, 'J'hat, as a proper mark of respect for the memory of the departed, 
this body do now adjourn. 



biography of hon. daniel s, dickinson. 15 

New-York House of Assembly, ) 
Saturday^ April 14, 1866. f 

The following preamble and resolutions presented by Mr. Eld- 
ridge were unanimously adopted : 

Whereas, By a sudden interposition of Divine Providence, our State and 
Nation have been deprived of the services of an able and distinguished states- 
man ; therefore, 

Resolved, That, in the recently communicated intelligence of the death of Hon. 
D. S. Dickinson, we recognize the loss of one whose lofty patriotism, wise states- 
manship, purity of purpose and valuable public service have endeared him to the 
hearts of the people, and that we deeply and sincerely deplore the afiflictive 
dispensation. 

Resolved, That we heartily sympathize with the family and friends of the de- 
ceased statesman in this their great bereavement, and that an engrossed copy of 
this preamble and these resolutions be forwarded by the Clerk of this Assembly. 

The telegram announcing his death to his fellow-townsmen and 
neighbors at Binghamton was received with every evidence of 
profound and heart-felt sorrow. Bells were tolled, and public 
and private buildings were draped in mourning. A large com- 
munity mourned the death of a favorite son, for here he was 
universally beloved, and every one felt his death as a personal 
afHiction. 

MEETING OF THE BAR OF BROOME COUNTY. 

At a meeting of the members of the Bar of Broome County, at 
the office of Hon. Greorge Bartlett, for the purpose of taking such 
measures as should properly express their grief, occasioned by 
the loss of their great leader, Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson, and as 
should be a fitting tribute to the memory of the deceased, on mo- 
tion, B. IST. Loomis, Esq., was appointed Chairman, and Jos. M. 
Johnson, Secretary. 

John Clapp, Esq., stated briefly the object of the meeting, and 
related, in an eloquent and impressive manner, his first meeting 
with the deceased, and gave a sketch of his early professional 
career, after which he moved that a committee be appointed to 
draft such resolutions as should be fitting and proper. 



16 BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 

The Chairman appointed as such committee John Clapp, Geo. 
Bartlett, E. C. Kattell, Lewis Seymour, O. W. Chapman, Geo. 
Park and Wm. Barrett. 

After consultation, Mr. Clapp reported from the committee the 
following preamble and resolutions, which were unanimously 
adopted : 

The telegraph announces that our distinguished townsman, Daniel S. Dickin- 
son, is numbered with the dead. He has been stricken down whilst in full pos- 
session of his great mental power and the discharge of duties connected with 
the important office in the City of New- York, to which he had been called by 
the Government of the United States. 

The blow was sudden and unlocked for. His fellow-townsmen were smitten 
with astonishment and grief, as the sad news was communicated from one to 
another. 

The tolling bell, the flag at half-mast, and the general display of badges of 
mourning, tell truly how wide-spread the lamentation over this sad visitation. 

The members of the Bar of the County of Broome, resident in Binghamton, 
have gathered to express their feelings and high estimation of the qualities of 
the illustrious dead, therefore. 

Resolved, That by the sudden death of Daniel S. Dickinson the legal profes- 
sion has been deprived of one of its most distinguished members, and our 
country of a forensic and senatorial debater of the school of Webster, Calhoun 
and Clay. 

Resolved, That we mourn the loss of a professional brother, of high attain- 
ments and varied qualifications for the earnest, vigorous, faithful discharge of 
every duty which the lawyer owes the client ; but not the great lawyer only, for 
we have lost our townsman, neighbor, guide, advocate and friend. 

Resolved, That this dispensation of Providence has removed from our midst 
a statesman whose reputation was co-extensive with the boundaries of the 
Republic and not unknown to the great reformers of Europe, now struggling 
for the diffusion of American ideas and the recognition of the civil rights of the 
masses of mankind. 

Resolved, That the uniform kindness of manner of the deceased, combined 
with his genial humor, wit and learning, made him a favorite in every court, and 
will keep green his memory long after his body has returned to its native dust. 

Resolved, That we tender to the family of the deceased our heartfelt sympathy 
under the crushing blow which has fallen upon them. 



BIOGRAPHY OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 17 

Resolved, That as a body we will attend the reception of the remains of our 
deceased brother, at the depot, upon their arrival from New- York, and escort 
them to his late habitation, and thence to their final resting place. 

Resolved, That the Secretary of this meeting prepare a copy of these resolu- 
tions, and deliver it to the family of the deceased, and also copies for the papers 
for publication. 

B. N. LOOMIS, Chairman. 

Jos. M. Johnson, Secretary. 

In New- York City his death was noticed in the usual manner 
at all the public ofl&ces and buildings, and in the Courts by ad- 
journment and proceedings as follows : 
3 



PEOOEEDINaS IN THE NEW-YORK COURTS 



ON THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE 



DEATH OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON, 

FBIIDAY, -AJPRIL 13th, 1866. 

UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT. 

Judge Shipman Presiding. 

At the opening of this Court, Edwin W. Stoughton, Esq., rose 
and. stated, that, since the adjournment on Thursday, the Bar and 
public had sustained a very great loss in the death of the Hon. 
Daniel S. Dickinson, after a very short but very severe illness. 
He had met him but lately in the full enjoyment of health and 
expectation of long life. He was a very distinguished man, and 
had filled a large space not only in the profession, but in public 
life. He rose by his own efforts, as all men who attain real dis- 
tinction must do. He was not more remarkable by his abilities 
as a lawyer, and orator, and statesman, than by the personal quali- 
ties which endeared liim to all those who were connected with 
him. But a very few hours since, as it seemed to the speaker, he 
was sitting by' him, talking to him of anticipated enjoyment 
during the coming months in a visit to his place. It was only 
last evening that he had heard for the first time of his illness. He 
hardly need say that his loss called for a public recognition, and 
he trusted that a further opportunity might be granted for the bar 
to express their sense of his loss. 

Under the circumstances he need only move that the Court, out 
of respect for his memory, do now adjourn. He presumed that 
the members of the bar would take measures to express their 
feelings in a more formal manner. 



20 PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURTS. 

Sidney "Webster, Esq., in seconding the motion to adjourn, re- 
marked that it was not needful for him, in seconding the motion, 
to say anything in addition to what had been so properly ex- 
pressed by Mr. Stoughton. It was an important event when the 
person who had been commissioned by the President to exercise 
the legal authority of the United States in this District was sud- 
denly stricken down by death ; but the event had additional im- 
portance and significance when, as in the case of Mr. Dickinson, 
the officer had been so prominently concerned in the administra- 
tion of the National and State Governments of the Union. It 
hud so happened to him that he had been associated with Mr. 
Dickinson, in the other Court, in the last case in which he had 
been concerned. During the whole of it Mr. Dickinson appeared 
to be in perfect health and in excellent spirits. On Monday last, 
however, he complained a little of indisposition, which he sup- 
posed was temporary. He left on the adjournment of the Court 
and proceeded to his house. That was his last appearance in any 
earthly tribunal. Mr. Webster then suggested that a meeting of 
the bar be called for some future day— say Wednesday next — to 
take such steps as might be deemed proper to attest their appre- 
ciation of the eminent services, legal and political, and the striking 
virtues, of their deceased brother. 

Judge Shipman said : " The very high official position of the 
late United States District Attorney will justify the call for some 
public recognition of his death ; but, aside from that, his very emi- 
nent public character and private worth require tlaat the Court 
should recognize its misfortune in the sad event, and that there 
sliould be a more formal recognition of it than is possible now. 
The Court will, out of respect to the memory of the deceased, now 
adjourn, and the Clerk will enter this order on the minutes." 

The Court then adjourned. 

The United States District Court not being in session, no pro- 
ceedings were had therein on this day. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURTS. 21 

GENERAL TERM OF THE SUPREME COURT. 
Hon. George G. Barnard Presiding. 

At the opening of the Court, Judge Pierrepont arose and said : 
" May it please your Honors, I arise to announce the sad news 
of the death of that eminent lawyer, statesman and patriot, 
Daniel S. Dickinson, United States District Attorney for the 
Southern District of New- York. He died suddenly last evening 
at the house of his son-in-law, Mr. Courtney, the Assistant Dis- 
trict Attorney. On a more fit occasion, when the Judiciary and 
the Bar, and other mourning citizens shall have assembled to do 
honor to the memory of a patriot whom the nation will mourn, 
addresses will no doubt be made appropriate to the sad event, and 
expressive of the high appreciation which is so generally accorded, 
to the great virtues of the illustrious deceased. I now move that 
as a mark of respect to the memory of the late Mr. Dickinson, 
this Court do now adjourn." 

The motion was seconded by Wm. M. Evarts, Esq. Presiding 
Justice G. G. Barnard said that he and his associate Justices fully 
concurred in the remarks which had been made by the learned 
gentlemen of the Bar. Upon the occasion of the decease of so 
great a lawyer and statesman, it was eminently fit that this respect 
should be paid to his memory. The Court would therefore order 
an adjournment until Monday next, at 11 A. M., and direct the 
Clerk to enter these proceedings on its minutes. 

SUPREME COURT, SPECIAL TERM, CHAMBERS. 
Hon. Thomas W. Clerke Presiding. 

At the opening of the Court, Major-General C. W. Sandford 
moved the adjournment of the Court in the following language: 

I have just heard, with great regret, of the death of Mr. Daniel 
S. Dickinson, United States District Attorney for this:jDistrict, a 
gentleman who has stood high at our bar, and has been a con- 
spicuous man in our State and nation. He always possessed the 
esteem and respect of his associates, and his loss will be deeply 



22 PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURTS, 

felt by the profession. This is not the time or place to pro- 
nounce a eulogy, or to descant upon the merits or abilities of the 
deceased, and I will, therefore, simply content myself with moving 
that the Court do now adjourn. 

Mr. John McKeon seconded the motion, and said that, as he 
understood a meeting of the Bar would shortly be held on the 
subject of Mr. Dickinson's death, he would refrain from making 
any extended remarks. 

Judge Gierke then adjourned the Court, expressing his entire 
concurrence in the remarks made by counsel. 

SUPERIOR COURT— TRIAL TERM. 
Hon. John H. McL'unn Presiding. 

Henry L. Clinton, Esq., announced the painful intelligence re- 
ceived of the death of the honored United States District Attor- 
ney, Daniel S. Dickinson, and, in a few remarks tributory to his 
great worth, eminence and distinguished public services, moved 
that the Court stand adjourned, as a mark of respect to his me- 
mory. 

Gunning S. Bedford, Jr., Esq., seconded the motion. 

Judge McCunn, concurring in the remarks made, fully appre- 
ciating the eminent worth of the deceased, and the loss sustained 
in his death, ordered the motion lo be entered on the minutes, 
and the Court adjourned. 

SUPERIOR COURT— TRIAL TERM— PART II. 

Hon. Samuel Jones Presiding. 

At the opening of the Court Robert E. Holmes, Esq., in a few 
words announced to the Court the fact of Mr. Dickinson's sudden 
death, delivering a short but happy eulogy on the character, ac- 
complishments and virtues of the deceased. In accordance with 
a custom which, he said, appeared to prevail almost solely among 
members of the Bar — that of adjourning through respect for the 
memory of their distinguished brethren — he moved that the 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURTS. 23 

Court adjourn, as a mark of the deep regret felt for the loss of the 
distinguished departed. 

The motion was seconded by A. S. Cohen, Esq., in a few ap- 
propriate and eloquent remarks. 

Judge Jones ordered that the Court should be adjourned to 
Monday next, and that the Clerk enter a suitable record of the 
facts on the books of the Court. 

SUPERIOR COURT— SPECIAL TERM. 
Hon. Claudius L. Monell Presiding. 

At the opening of this Court, Thomas B. Barnaby, Esq., arose 
and said, that, although called into Court to transact professional 
business, he owned it his duty to apprise the Court of the melan- 
choly intelligence which had just reached him of the sudden 
death of the Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson, the District Attorney of 
the United States for the Southern District of New- York. Mr. 
Dickinson, he said, had held many high and responsible offices, 
and had won the respect and esteem, not only of the Bar, but of 
the whole community. He moved, that, out of respect for his 
memory, the Court do now adjourn. 

The motion having been seconded by Mr. Boardman, Judge 
Monell remarked that he had, a few moments previously, heard of 
the death of Mr. Dickinson. The shock, he said, had come to 
him with the greater suddenness and force, from having seen Mr. 
Dickinson within a very few days in apparent full vigor and 
health. He had known Mr. Dickinson long, and at one period 
intimately, and had always entertained not only the greatest 
admiration for his talents and learning, but the highest esteem 
for his goodness, affability and urbanity. Mr. Dickinson had 
filled many high positions of trust and honor, and was always 
distinguished for the ability and fidelity with which he had dis- 
charged all their duties. Upon the death of such a man it was 
eminently proper that every respect should be paid to his memory. 
The Judge concluded by ordering Mr. Thomas Bennett, Clerk of 



24 PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURTS. 

the Court, to enter an order adjourning this Court until Monday 
morning. 

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS. 
Hon. Charles P. Daly Presiding. 

At the opening of this Court, Augustus F. Smith, Esq., ad- 
dressed the Court as follows: May it please the Court, since 
coming into Court I have learned to my great surprise and regret, 
that Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson died last night, after a very brief 
illness. In common, probably, with many members of the Bar, I 
had no very intimate relations or associations with Mr. Dickinson, 
for the reason that but for the very brief period of twelve months 
he has been a resident of the City of New- York, and practising 
here among us. It is now but twelve months, I think, since be 
was appointed to the responsible and dignified position which he 
has filled to bis own credit, and to the satisfaction and benefit of 
the Government which he represented in that office. Mr. Dickin- 
son, however, not being known to us so much as a practising 
lawyer in our midst, was known to us by reputation. His repu- 
tation was not confined to the southern portion of the State, where 
he practised for so many years, but reached us, not only as a 
lawyer, but as being connected with prominent political parties, 
from all parts of the country. Mr. Dickinson had been at one 
time named for the most distinguished position to which the 
suffrages of the American people can call any man. I am not 
able, sir, to speak from personal knowledge of him, further than 
I have now done. It is unquestionably appropriate that the 
Courts of this City and State should extend to him and to his 
memory some appropriate appreciation by an adjournment, if the 
Court approves, and that there shall be such an entry on the 
minutes as shall show what has been done in view of the bereave- 
ment which has befallen us. I move, your Honor, that the Court 
do now adjourn. 

Amos K. Hadley, Esq., seconded the motion for adjournment 
He had known Mr. Dickinson for twenty-five years, and ever 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURTS. 25 

found him to be a man of ability, learning and great purity of 
character. As United States Senator, Lieutenant-Governor, 
Attorney-General, District- Attorney, and in all the public offices 
which he has filled, Mr. Dickinson discharged the duties with 
honor to himself and complete satisfaction to the public, and 
sustained as high a reputation as any man in the country. He 
was called away full of honor, but at a ripe old age, with the 
esteem and love of his fellow-men. 

Mr. Brewster, in the course of a very effective speech, said that 
during the whole career of Mr. Dickinson, it was worthy of 
remark, that though he had filled many high offices, and taken 
part in very warm political contests, he had never been charged 
with the commission of a single impure, corrupt or unjust action. 

Judge Daly, in answer to the motion, replied as follows : I 
have also known Mr. Dickinson for more than a quarter of a 
century. I was associated with him in the Legislature nearly 
twenty-five years ago, and the intimacy there, or which began 
immediately preceding that period, has been continued, so far as 
could be, in the diffisrent course of our different lives. I knew 
much of his character, and am, therefore, able to appreciate the 
justness of all that has been said respecting him. He was a dis- 
tinguished man, and deservedly distinguished. As a lawyer he 
was remarkable for his acuteness, for more than the usual share of 
legal learning, and for his untiring industry. To the close of his 
protracted life he filled offices not usually held by men of his 
advanced age, and fulfilled their duties with the strength and 
vigor of youth. He was, as the seconder of the motion has 
remarked, direct and outspoken, and, like all strong and earnest 
natures, he very frequently brought himself into collision with 
those who differed from him in opinion. He filled important 
public stations, such as the Lieutenant-Governorship of this State, 
the representative of this State in the Senate of the United 
States, and the distinguished legal offices which he has held sub- 
sequently, in all of which he was distinguished by his great 
private integrity, by his disinterested regard for the public inter- 
4 



26 PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURTS. 

ests committed to his charge, and by the great influence which 
he exercised, whether appealing to his fellow-citizens upon great 
public questions, or addressing those Legislative bodies to which 
the disposition of them was intrusted. The same earnestness of 
character, the same strength of conviction which marked his 
whole career pervaded his public speeches ; and he was, therefore, 
as the same speaker has remarked, distinguished for his earnest 
eloquence, for his impressiveness, and for his power of working 
conviction in others. The convictions imbedded in his own 
nature were impressed upon his words, which, kindled by their 
eloquence, and animated and influenced those to whom they were 
addressed. He was, as the same gentleman has again remarked, 
during nearly the whole of his life, associated with one political 
party, and the earnestness of his character was manifested by his 
fidelity and zeal in upholding the political views of that party on 
great public questions. He was particularly earnest, and especially 
as a Senator of the United States, in his constant opposition to all 
the public measures which he thought might exasperate any por- 
tion of the country and bring about the calamity of civil war or 
national separation. He was, therefore, known, and perhaps as 
))r()minently known as any man in the Northern States and shar- 
ing the Northern interests, as a warm upholder of what were 
regarded as the rights of the South. Apprehending, as I have 
frequently heard him express, that the course of public measures 
would lead to a conflict with the Southern States, and possibly to 
civil war, he was opposed to nearly all the measures which have 
precipitated the recent course of events, guarding and defending 
the interests of the Southern States in those rights which he con- 
sidered were guaranteed to them by the Constitution. But when 
the Southern people broke loose from the Constitution — when, 
without cause or pretence of complaint, they raised their hands 
against the Government of their fathers, declaring for separation 
and a distinct national existence, Mr. Dickinson, with the same 
consistency of character, the same manly earnestness and the 
same love of country, that had previously influenced his conduct. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURTS. 2? 

took his ground, at the veiy outset, against them, and upon all 
occasions raised his voice and exerted his influence in strengthen- 
ing the hands of the Government in its efibrts for the preservation 
of the nation. It is not very easj now to measure the extent of 
the influence of such a man, or what it accomplished in that 
perilous crisis. He encountered then, as he had encountered 
before, strong personal opposition, from men with whom he had 
been politically connected durhig the principal part of his life. 
But with the instinct which springs from love of country, with the 
high view it enforces of national duty, and from the strong con- 
victions of his reason, he repudiated all personal and political 
considerations that conflicted with the great duty before him, and 
from the beginning of the contest to the close, brought his great 
powers, his earnestness and his eloquence, to the task of over- 
coming the arguments of opponents, possibly as sincere as himself 
and of convincing all classes of the duty of standing by the 
country in its hour of peril. This alone, apart from his high 
professional abilities, in the important legal oflEices he has filled, 
would be a reason for paying this public mark of respect to his 
memory: and the time of any tribunal is well employed in 
drawing attention to the example of such a life. To all this must 
be added genial private qualities which make his loss sensibly felt 
by friends and associates, especially those friends no longer look- 
ing forward upon life, and whose views of it are more influenced 
by the contemplation of the years that have passed than by the 
expectations of those that are to come. I shall, therefore, direct 
the adjournment of the Court, in compliance with the motion 
that has been made, as a proper tribute to a man who, regarded in 
every aspect, professional, public or private, has been so useful, 
so honorable and so prominent a citizen. 

During the delivery of the address, his Honor was much 
affected. 

COURT OF GENERAL SESSIONS. 

Before Recorder Hackett. 
Information of the death of the United States District Attorney 



28 PEOCEEDINGS IN THE COURTS. 

having been communicated to the Court by Assistant District 
Attorney Hutchings, the Eecorder, as a mark of respect to the 
illustrious dead, adjourned the Court. 

MARINE COURT. 

At the sitting of this Court, Judge Gross presiding, Mr. Joseph 
Bell, Assistant United States District Attorney, in a few words, 
moved the adjournment of the Court in consequence of the death 
of Mr. Dickinson. He spoke of Mr. Dickinson's painful illness, 
and of his own personal relations to him, and said he did not feel 
himself equal to the task of eulogizing the private or public cha- 
racter of so great a man under the circumstances. 

Mr. Edward Patterson, in some appropriate remarks, seconded 
the motion for adjournment 

Judge Gross, after expressing his entire approbation of the 
motion, and the sorrow felt by the Bench, the Bar and the coun- 
try, at the loss sustained in the death of Mr. Dickinson, ordered 
the Court to be adjourned till Monday. 



FUNEREAL OBSEQUIES. 



Brief funeral services were held on Friday evening, April 13tli, 
at the residence of Mr. Courtney, preparatory to the removal of 
his remains for burial at Binghamton, which removal was eifected 
on Saturday, April 14th, 

He was interred at the cemetery of the village of Binghamton, 
Sunday, April 15th, and the following account of the reception 
of his remains by his friends and fellow-townsmen, and the last 
sad rites to his remains, has been selected from the columns of 
the Binghamton Republican : 

THE VILLAGE IN MOURNING. 

The Court House, whose grim out-line at all times present a 
solemn and imposing spectacle, to-day^ had that effect heightened 
in the highest degree. The four massive Corinthian columns 
were covered with crape, from the base to the capitals ; and float- 
ing streamers of the same material were flying from end to end of 
the massive structure. In the cornice of the arch appears the 
words: "We Mourn the Loss of Our Distinguished 
Fellow-Townsman. " 

There was not a block in the whole village that did not exhibit 
some token of bereavement, and scarce a countenance that did 
not betray how deep the wearer felt his loss. Nothing of the 
kind ever wrought our people more general affliction than this 
sad news. Daniel Stevens Dickinson was to our village its no- 
blest man, and our posterity will view with sacred awe how deeply 
we mourned his loss to-day. 

THE RECEPTION. 

The train, bearing the remains of Mr. Dickinson, arrived about 
fifteen minutes of four o'clock P. M. Around the depot, awaiting 
the arrival of the distinguished dead, was an assemblage the like 



30 FUNEREAL OBSEQUIES. 

of which before was never witnessed in Binghamton. The rich 
and poor here gathered to greet, with heavy hearts, the lifeless 
form of him who, in life, they had learned to cherish as the most 
benevolent of men, the wisest of counsellors and the ablest states- 
man they had ever sent forth to guard their interests and protect 
their homes. All present partook of the solemnity of the scene 
and shared in the common affliction. 

Immediately upon the arrival of the train, the coffin containing 
the body — a rich, but plain rosewood sarcophagus — was con- 
veyed to the hearse, while the family of the deceased statesman 
were conducted to the carriages awaiting their entry. 

All was soon in readiness, and the funeral cortege moved 
off at a slow and measured pace. The following gentlemen 
acted as pall-bearers : Messrs. Ammi Doubleday, Augustus Mor- 
gan, John Clapp, George Burr, I. R. Sands, S. H. P. Hall, W. 
R. Osborn, S. D. Phelps, The procession was composed of the 
village authorities, members of the Bar, Masonic fraternity, the 
firemen, the Press and the citizens, friends and family of the 
deceased. The Binghamton band preceded the long line, play- 
ing solemn dirges. The avenues were lined with a vast assem- 
blage of sympathizers with the family of Mr. Dickinson, making 
the scene impressively solemn. 

The body was escorted to the late residence of the deceased, 
known as the " Orchard," on the west bank of the Chenango, and 
which, while living, he sought in his periods of retirement and 
rest, when his duties as a public man would permit. 

All that is mortal of Daniel S. Dickinson is now lying in his 
late home. After the fitful fever of life, he has been gathered to 
the spot of his adoption, here to rest in undisturbed sleep till the 
dead awaken. Though he was denied the fondly cherished hope 
that he would be permitted to die in his own home, yet his second 
desire, to be laid in the Valley of Chenango, has not been denied 
him. 



FUNEREAL OBSEQUIES. 



THE LAST SAD EITES. 



THE ORCHARD. 

The late home of the deceased was thrown open to the public 
in the forenoon of yesterday, and the coffin being placed in a 
favorable position, the village populace were enabled to behold 
the features of the great man for the last time. The assemblage 
here gathered was upwards of six thousand. The time consumed 
in passing in and from the house was upwards of three hours. 

The body of Mr. Dickinson was laid in a rich plain rosewood 
coffin, and was dressed in full natural attire. Within the coffin 
the corpse was covered in part with flowers, while the cover-lid 
revealed wreaths of myrtle with flowers interwoven. The body 
was laid in the north-west parlor, and the vast concourse that 
thronged to take a last look upon the features of the great states- 
man entered from the south, passed around the coffin, and was 
permitted to leave from the east entrance. The features of the 
deceased presented the appearance of one in natural slumber 
rather than in death. The effacing finger of death had not swept 
one line of beauty from his venerable countenance. The sweet 
and goodly expression still lingered, unwilling to be replaced by 
any other. 

THE FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 

The funeral ceremonies were conducted under the auspices of 
the Episcopal Clergy, and were performed by Rev. Dr. Andrews, 
who read the first part of the service, joined by Rev. Rodman 
Lewis, Chaplain United States Navy, and followed by Rev. Chas. 
H. Piatt, Rector of Christ Church, of which Mr. Dickinson, in 
life, was a member. No extended remarks were indulged on the 
occasion, but it was announced a sermon of length would be 
preached at a future day. 

There were present at the services, both at the deceased's late 
home and the grave, many distinguished gentlemen from all parts 
of the State and countrj^ 



32 FUNEREAL OBSEQUIES. 

THE CLOSING SCENE. 

Between 3 and 4 o'clock the long procession was moved into 
line, and the body was slowly and solemnly, without music, borne 
to its final resting place. 

The procession reached from the late home of the deceased to 
the grave, and the avenues leading to and from these places were 
lined with a dense concourse of our citizens. 

The following order was observed : 



3.— OFFICIATING- CriERGrYjyLEN". 



3.— THE HEARSE. 

ATTENDED BY EIGHT PALL BEAUEKS, CONSISTING OF 



AMMI DOUBLEDAT, 
AUGUSTUS MORGAN, 
JOHN CLAPP, 
GEORGE BURR, 



I. R. SANDS, 
S. H. P. HALL, 
W. R. OSBOEN, 
S. D. PHELPS. 



^.-FAMILY OF DECEASED. 



5.— DELEGA.TION OF CITIZEISTS FROJM .ABROAD, 



6.— BOARD OF TRXJSTEPiS OF BIISIOHAIVITON. 



r.-JMElVEBERS OF THE BAR OF BROOJNIE COXJNTY. 



8.-m:asonic fraternity. 



O.-ClTIZElSrS OF BINGHIAIVETON AND VICINITY. 



Among the distinguished visitors present we observed the fol- 
lowing: Judge Ballard and E. W. Leavenworth, both ex-Secre- 
taries of State ; Judge Henry W. Rogers, of Buffalo ; Judge 
Stevens of Cortland ; Mr. Haven, Superintendent of the Syracuse 
and Binghamton Eoad, the Directors of the road, and the Mayor 



FUNEREAL OBSEQUIES. 33 

of Syracuse ; Gr. W. Hotchkiss, J. R. Dickinson, S. G. Courtney, 
Robert Murray, U. S. Marshal of New- York City ; and upwards 
of seventy citizens of Syracuse, embracing the Common Council 
and the Bar of that place. 

THE GRAVE. 

How sweet the grave wherein he lies entombed. A little mound, 
shaded by an adjoining hill, was the spot selected for the final 
resting place of this great and goodly man. A little fretful brook, 
whose wandering course leads along the base of this mound, sings 
gentle dirges on its rippling surface, as if to soothe the calm 
sleeper who rests so near its borders. Beside him lie the bodies 
of his daughter, Mrs. Virginia E. Murray, and his son, Manco 
Capac Dickinson. The little cemetery containing the honored 
dead is on the village limits, and is known as Spring Grove. Its 
situation is not above half a mile from the late home of the de- 
ceased statesman. 

INCIDENTS. 

The pew of Mr. Dickinson, in the Episcopal Church, was, on 
Sunday, draped in mourning. Its solemn weeds and vacant seats 
told their sad and impressive tale. 

At the Episcopal Church, on Sunday, of which Mr. Dickinson 
was a member, a clergyman from Canada preached in the fore- 
noon, and in the course of his sermon made an appropriate 
allusion to the death of Mr. Dickinson, and stated that several 
years ago he had met him as the first public man in this country, 
and was much impressed with his appearance and character. 

Mr. Keyser, of the Baptist Church, preached a funeral sermon 
on the death of Mr. Dickinson, last evening. The words of his 
text were the same that he selected upon the occasion of the death 
of President Lincohi, although the sermon was altogether different- 
The text alluded to was taken from Proverbs xx., 1st verse, and 
read, " A good name is rather to be chosen than great riclies, and 
loving favor rather than silver or gold," The discourse was one 
of the speaker's finest efforts, and adds to his growing popularit3^ 
5 



Si FUNEKEAL OBSEQUIES. 

As ail illustration of the hold which Mr. Dickinson had on the 
hearts of the people, it may be mentioned that at the religious 
exercises at the Baptist Church, on Friday evening last, there 
were no prayers or remarks made that did not contain some 
allusion to his death. 

At the close of the sermon in the Catholic Church yesterday, 
the Kev. Father Hourigan referred to the death of the Hon. Daniel 
S. Dickinson, in a feeling and appropriate manner, lauding his 
many virtues, both as a citizen and statesman. He spoke of his 
unbounded liberality to the poor, with whom he would willingly 
divide the last meal upon his table ; he said but few knew as 
well what the lamented Dickinson had done for the jDOor and 
destitute of Binghamton, as the speaker ; no person was ever 
turned from his door empty handed ; he was a man that could 
not from his very nature, refuse assistance to any person, whoever 
he might be. In the death of this genius and scholar, this honest, 
kind-hearted, . generous, self-made man, the country has lost one 
of its purest and most devoted statesmen ; Binghamton one of its 
best, most enterprising, beloved and prominent citizens ; and the 
poor one of their truest of earthly friends. The reverend gentle- 
man then referred to his intimate acquaintance with the deceased, 
to his genial nature and pleasing conversational powers, and 
classed him as one who had spent his life and means in trying to 
benefit humanity and his country, which he had served faithfully 
and successfully even to the detriment of his own health. Time 
or space will not permit of our referring further to the eloquent 
remarks of the reverend gentleman, which drew tears to the eyes 
of many of the congregation. He closed his remarks by referring, 
in a beautiful manner, to Mr. Dickinson's family, who, he said, 
were instilled with the same kind, charitable disposition, and the 
happiest moments in their lives seemed to be when they were 
helping the poor and needy. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK 



IN RELATION TO THE 



DEATH OF HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. 



PRELIMINARY MEETING 

HELD AT THE NEW- YORK LAW INSTITUTE SATURDAY, APRIL J4tH, 1866. 

There was a large attendance of the prominent members of 
tlie Bar present at the hour appointed. 

George T. Curtis, Esq., was elected as Chairman, and JoHisr 
J. Hill, Esq., as Secretary. 

The following named persons were elected as members of a 
Committee to make the necessary arrangements for the proposed 
meeting of the Bar, and to prepare and report appropriate resolu- 
tions for adoption at that meeting : 

Hon. EDWARDS PIERREPONT, 
DANIEL LORD, Esq., 

Hon. JOSEPH S. BOSWORTH, 

Hon. ALEXANDER W. BRADFORD, 
WILLIAM M. E7ARTS, Esq., 

Hon. WILLIAM F. ALLEN, 

EDWIN W. STOUGHTON, Esq. 

The meeting of the Bar was afterwards appointed, by said Com- 
mittee, to be held at the U. S. District Court Rooms, April 18th, 
1866. 



oG PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 



MEETING OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK, 

HELD AT THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT ROOMS, WEDNES- 
DAY, APRIL 18th, 1866. 

At this meeting there was a very large attendance of the Judi- 
ciary and most distinguished members of the Bar. 

The Judges of the United States Courts, the Supreme and 
Superior Courts and Court of Common Pleas, Mayor Hoffman 
and General Dix, Hon. Henry E. Davies, Judge of the New- 
York Court of Appeals, and many other distinguished citizens of 
the City and State of New- York, were present, and occupied seats 
near the bencb, and within the bar. 

This large Court Eoom was filled to its utmost capacity. 

On motion of Judge Pierrepont, Chairman of the Executive 
Committee, Hon. Samuel R Betts, was appointed President of 
the meeting. 

On motion of Edwin W. Stoughton, Esq., Judges Davies, 
Shipman, Benedict, Daly, Barnard, Robertson, Mason and 
Davis, were appointed Vice-Presidents. 

On motion of Hon. William F. Allen, Samuel Blatchford, Esq., 
and James C. Spencer, Esq., of the New- York Bar, were appointed 
Secretaries of the Meeting. Judge Pierrepont then addressed 
the meeting as follows : 

Mr. President — 

Although it is very generally known that the eminent man, to 
whose cherished memory we have met to pay our grateful tribute, 
was religious in his sentiments, yet it may not be so generally un- 
derstood that he was a communicant of the Episcopal Church. He 
had not long resided with us, and his private life and his charm- 
ing domestic virtues may not be so well known here as in the 
country, at Binghamton, where his earlier and middle life was 
spent, and where he was known as only those who live in the 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 37 

country are known, and where such a vast concourse ot sincere 
mourners followed him to his grave. 

Five days before his death, and, it would seem, with some pre- 
monitions of his approaching end, he wrote some lines of poetry, 
addressed to his wife, the touching beauty of which will perhaps 
more truly reveal the tenderness and purity of his inner life than 
any speech which can be made. I propose to read them : 

XO LYDIA. 

In youth's bright morn, when life was new, 
And earth was fresh with dew and flowers, 

And love was warm and friendship true, 
And hope and happiness were ours, 

We started hand in hand to tread 

The chequered, changeful path of life, 
And with each other, trusting, tread 

The battle fields of worldly strife. 

We ranged in walks obscure, unseen, 

O'er rugged steep, through vale and glen. 
And climbed along the hillsides green, 

Unmindful of the future then. 

We caught the song of earliest birds, 

We culled the loveliest flowers of spring, 
We plighted love in whispering words, 

And time sped by on fairy wing. 

And as it passed, new joys were found, 

And life was gladdened by the birth 
Of prattling babes, who clustered round. 

To cheer with smiles our humble hearth. 

Fate thrust us forth, before the world, 

And phantoms whispered earthly fame, 
Where hope's proud banner is unfurled, 

And happiness too oft a name. 

Thus lured along, we rode the dark 

And foaming tide of public life, 
And proudly dared with slender barque. 

The elements of storm and strife. 



38 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 

But storm and strife, thank Heaven, have passed- 
The night has fled and morning come ! 

And we, tossed mariners, at last 
Returned once more to hearth and home. 

But of the loved ones God had given. 
Two have returned — two sunk to rest — 

In Ufe's gay morning called to Heaven, 
To the bright mansions of the blest. 

They sleep amidst Spring-Forest's glades, 
Where flow its streamlets' murmuring waves, 

And oft at evening's gentle shades, 
We'll weep beside their early graves. 

Yet loved ones cluster round us still, 
To gild the days of life's decline. 

And whisper — 'tis our Father's will 
That blessings yet are yours and mine. 

No change of life, no change of scene, 
No fevered dreams, no cankering cares. 

No hopes which are, or e'er have been. 
Nor wrinkled brow, nor silver hairs, 

Have ever changed that vow of youth, 
Or blotted it from memory's page ; 

But warm as love, and pure as truth. 
It ripens with the frosts of age. 

A few more days — a few more years — 

Of life's capricious fitful tide ; 
A few more sorrows, joys and tears. 

And we shall slumber side by side. 

Tlien let us live — then let us love — 
As when life's journey we begun. 

Until we meet in worlds above. 
When this sad pilgrimage is done. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 39 

In behalf of the Committee, appointed by the New- York Bar, I 
have the honor to present the following Resolutions, and move 
their adoption : 

To preserve in sacred memory the virtues of the deceased, and 
as a faint tribute of their respect for the late Daniel S. Dickinson, 
the Bar of tlie City of New-York adopt the following Reso- 
lutions : 

Resolved, That by the sudden death of Daniel S. Dickinson, while in the 
high and responsible office of District Attorney of the United States, the Bar 
has been deprived of one of its brightest ornaments, and the Government of one 
of its most faithful officers. 

Resolved, That in the late Daniel S. Dickinson, we recognize an eminent 
example of a zealous, fearless and able advocate, and of a sagacious, incorrupt- 
ible and patriotic statesman. That we shall ever remember him as a man of 
enlarged understanding, of quick perceptions, of noble impulses, of generous and 
kindliest sympathy with his fellow-men ; as a true and devoted friend, of a warm 
heart and an honest mind ; as one of purest domestic virtues, and in every 
relation of private life as faithful, loving and beloved, and in the places of public 
trust which he so often and so honorably filled, as always upright, courteous and 
just. 

Resolved, That while we tender our sympathy and our condolence to the 
bereaved wife and the afflicted family of the deceased, we find mingled with our 
sorrow consolation from the fact, that he died after an active and useful life, 
devoted to the service of his country, and to the good of his fellow-men ; and 
that he passed from the busy scenes of his earnest life, serene and peaceful, 
reposing with unfaltering trust upon the Christian's hope of a glorious immor- 
tality. 

Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting, duly attested by its officers, 
be presented to the family of the deceased, and that a copy of these resolutions 
be published in the journals of the city. 

The resolutions were then adopted. 

REMARKS OF JUDGE BOSWORTH. 

Mr. President, 

Sympathising with the family and relatives of 
the deceased in their great bereavement, and sharing in the respect 
which acquaintances and friends entertain for his memory, I can 



40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 

only regret that my ability is not commensurate with my wish to 
do justice to his merits as a citizen, lawyer and statesman. 

My acquaintance with him commenced at Binghamton, in 
1831. In the fall of that year he removed to that place from 
Guilford, in the County of Chenango, in this State. At that time 
there was but one member of the Bar of that county, standing 
concededly and pre-eminently higher than any other in legal 
learning and ability. It was, therefore, a fair field for talent, 
united with industry and integrity, to struggle for professional 
success and eminence. 

Mr. Dickinson, like many other men of our country who have 
attained great distinction, and secured and deserved public con- 
fidence and respect, began life without other resources than his 
ability, professional knowledge, industry and integrity. He 
possessed a genial disposition, and this rapidly conciliated good- 
will. He was never found wanting in professional preparation or 
sound practical judgment, and these qualities soon won for him 
the corifidence of suitors. 

His earlier years had been passed in laborious and varied 
occupation, and his earlier associations and experience had made 
him acquainted with the struggles and emotions, and the feelings 
and views common to the mass of the intelligent and honest 
yeomanry of the country. It was natural for him to feel and 
think in unison with their feelings and thoughts, and he was 
consequently a formidable antagonist before a jury. 

Within a short time after he became a resident of Binghamton, 
he was selected as the attorney and counsel of the Broome County 
Bank, He soon acquired a good practice, and one that was 
considered profitable, in the moderate views which then prevailed 
in that locality. 

Within a few years, after removing to that county, he was 
usually retained on one side or the other of every important 
controversy. His growing reputation soon brought him retainers 
as counsel in heavy suits tried in adjoining counties. In the fall 
of l.^r?(), when ho was elected to the Senate of this State, his 



PEOCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW- YORK. 41 

practice was as lucrative and gratifying to professional pride, as 
that of any member of the bar, in that Senatorial District. Four 
years of service in the Senate of this State, and subsequently two 
years as Lieutenant-Governor, followed by six years of arduous 
labor and engrossing duties in the Senate of the United States, 
interrupted his professional career. When he retired from the 
Senate of the United States, he resumed the practice of his pro- 
fession with great success, and has since devoted himself to it, 
except during those intervals, at times somewhat lengthy, when 
he addressed his fellow-citizens, in masses, on the exciting ques- 
tions which, for a time, divided the two great political parties ; 
or at a later period, on those higher political questions, in view of 
which, and in his view of duty, patriotism, honor and the 
interests and the safety of the country, alike required him to rally 
all he could influence, to support the Government, and maintain 
the integrity of the Union, without pausing to consider by what 
party the Government was administered, or whether each of its 
measures met his full approbation. 

His life, which has been abruptly and unexpectedly terminated, 
was closed in the midst of high and responsible professional 
duties, as the Attorney, for this District, of the Government, in 
support of which he had severed the ties and associations of party, 
without renouncing its historic principles, and of a government 
whose authority over all the States and territories of the Union he 
had lived to see, as we hope, practically re-established. 

I have mentioned that he was elected to the Senate of this State, 
in the fall of 1836. From that time to the time of his decease, 
he has been more prominently and extensively known as one, 
active, able, and influential, in the political world, rather than as 
a lawyer. By his industry, firmness and ability as a member of 
the United States Senate, his reputation became national. He 
had while there, the entire and highest confidence of the great 
party of which he was a member, and eventually commanded the 
confidence and respect of his political enemies. 

The great jurist and statesman of New England, in the beauti- 
6 



42 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 

ful and unsolicited note which has recently met the public eye, 
paid to Mr. Dickinson, about the close of his Senatorial career, a 
generous and eloquent tribute which must have been gratifying 
to him, and one which his children may preserve as an honorable 
trophy won by the great ability and unflinching firmness of their 
father, in his support of measures which he believed essential to 
the well-being of our common country. But his political life I 
shall leave to be delineated by others, more familiar with the 
inner view of the political scenes in which the deceased bore so 
conspicuous a part. 

Of his neighborhood associations, and of the place he occupied 
in the feelings and regard of those with whom he came in daily 
contact in the place of his residence, I may, with propriety, bear 
testimony on this occasion. Our personal relations were friendly 
from the time our acquaintance began, until his death. Although 
1 removed to this city in the fall of 1836, yet the residence of 
kindred and friends in Broome County, made me a frequent 
visitor there, and I think I know the feelings of that community 
in regard to him. He early became very popular with the mass 
of the people, and soon won, and ever subsequently retained, the 
the sincere respect and regard of all classes. He was always 
active and efficient in furthering matters of public enterprise, 
calculated to develop the resources or advance the interests of 
that section of the State. He had a heart that sympathized with 
all cases and occasions appealing for relief or benevolent aid. 
He acted as well as spoke, and gave in the spirit of liberality 
which he urged others to exercise. His death made that com- 
munit}' a sad one. On Saturday last his remains were taken to 
the beautiful village of Binghamton, to find their final resting 
place in the cemetery of the town where he has so long resided 
in increasing honor. 

On that day all business there was suspended, private dwell- 
ings as well as the public buildings were draped in mourning, and 
all classes of the community were awaiting the arrival of his 
remains, and accompanied them, with every demonstration of 



PEOCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 43 

sincere grief and respect, to his late residence. No more need be 
said to illustrate the esteem with which he was cherished by those 
who knew him most intimately, or their grief at his loss. 

The many who have admired or respected him, but never 
entered his dwelling, may desire to know something of his life, in 
the relations of husband and father. He was a gentleman of 
domestic tastes and habits. He was hospitable, but without the 
slightest effort at ostentatious display. He was, emphatically, an 
affectionate father, ever mindful of the interests and happiness of 
his children. They reciprocated his interest in them, and re- 
quited it with steadfast affection, and the most sincere respect. 

The widow who survives him, has been a great invalid during 
the whole period of my acquaintance with them. She has been 
largely dependent unon him, in the varying changes of uniform 
ill health. 

Neither the exactions upon his time by active professional 
occupation, however great, nor the cares and anxieties of official 
and political life, however absorbing, ever found him weary or 
thoughtless in his attentions to her, or in consulting her comfort 
and happiness. 

But, notwithstanding her life has been that of an invalid, and 
his that of a man of uniform good health, he has been suddenly 
removed from the scenes of this life, and she survives, to mourn 
her great and irreparable loss. 

In her deep mourning, there must come the consolation, that 
the kind and beloved husband, who so long and devotedly 
journeyed with her along the pathway of life, has gone to his rest, 
after a well-spent life, full of years and of honor. But she has the 
more cheering consolation, that he died in the assured hope of a 
higher and happier life beyond the grave. 

REMARKS OP CHARLES P. KIRKLAND. 

The life of Mr. Dickinson furnishes a proud illustration of tLe 
beauty and beneficence of our form of Government. Born in 
humble circumstances, with no inheritance on his arrival at man- 



44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 

hood but poverty and tlie name of honest parents, with no educa- 
tion except that obtained at the common schools of forty-five 
years ago, his time was spent from his majority till the age of 
twenty-eight in obtaining the means of support, in self education, 
and in preparing himself for admission to the bar. This long 
period of legal clerkship was then requisite in his case, as he could 
furnish no certificate of time spent in classical studies. I was in- 
formed last evening by a gentleman who knew him in his younger 
days, that he was once an apprentice to a respectable but humble 
trade. But all this time he knew that wealth and birth were not 
passports in the " Great Republic" to eminence and fame ; that the 
want of them was no bar to advancement ; and under the genial 
influence of the consciousness of this truth he entered on the battle 
of life, and manfully fought his way to positions of honor and dis- 
tinction. It is indeed wonderful that, under all his circumstances, 
he could have made the acquisitions requisite to enable him to 
obtain the reputation he subsequently enjoyed as a statesman, a 
lawyer, a speaker and a writer, 

I met him first in the year 1832, at a convention in the County 
of Chenango, in reference to a matter then of great interest, and 
deemed of vital importance to his section of the State, and though 
he was at that time unknown to fame, I well remember his earnest 
and impressive appeals in behalf of the measure under con- 
sideration. 

I will not dwell on his literary attainments, and will only say 
that the address which he delivered in July, 1861, before the 
Literary Societies of Amherst College, was the work of an ac- 
complished and cultivated mind, and would have done no dis- 
credit to the best of our writers and orators. 

In 1836, he was elected Senator of this State, and thus became 
a member of our highest court; and in 1837, the first year of his 
taking his seat in that body, he delivered a number of very able 
and learned opinions, which will be found in the reports of that 
day, and this, it must be remembered, only six years after his ad- 
mission to the bar as counsel. 



PEOCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 45 

In 1842, he was Lieutenant-Governor of the State and ex-officio 
President of the Court just mentioned, and there again he mani- 
fested his ability as a lawyer and a judge. 

From 1844 to 1851, he was a member of the Senate of the 
United States, and for much of that time was Chairman of the 
Committee on Finance. You will want no better evidence of the 
j)osition he occupied in that distinguished body than is contained 
in a letter of Daniel "Webster to him, written after they had 
served together as Senators six years, and when Mr. Webster's 
term had expired. I cannot gratify this large assemblage more 
than by reading that honest and heartfelt testimony of the great 
statesman and lawyer to the merits and worth of our departed 
friend. The letter is as follows : 

" Washington, September 27, '50. 

" My Dear Sir, — Our companionship in the Senate is dissolved. After this 
long and most important session you are about to return to your home, and I 
shall try to find leisure to visit mine. I hope we may meet each other again 
two months hence, for the discharge of our duties in our respective stations in 
the Government. But life is uncertain, and I have not felt willing to take leave 
of you without placing in your hands a note containing a few words which I 
wish to say to you. 

" In the earlier part of our acquaintance, my dear sir, occurrences took place 
which I remember with constantly increasing regret and pain, because the more 
I have known you, the greater have been my esteem for your character and my 
respect for your talents. But it is your noble, able, manly and patriotic con- 
duct in support of the great measures of this session which has entirely won my 
heart and received my highe.Ht regard. I hope you may live long to serve your 
country ; but I do not think you are ever likely to s^e a crisis in which you 
may be able to do so much either lor your distinction or for the public good. 
You have stood where others have fallen ; you have advanced with firm and 
manly step where others have wavered, faltered and fallen back ; and for one, 
I desire to thank you and to commend your conduct out of the fullness of an 
honest heart. 

" This letter needs no reply ; it is, I am aware, of very little value ; but I have 
thought you might be willing to receive it, and perhaps to leave it where it 
would be seen by those who shall come after you. 

" I pray you, when you reach your own threshold, to remember me most 
kindly to your wife and daughter ; and I remain, my dear sir, with the truest 
esteem, your friend and obedient servant, Daniel Webster." 



46 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 

Mr. Dickinson's reply to that letter could not have been sur- 
passed in beauty of sentiment and elegance of diction by the most 
graceful writer of our country. 

Mr. Dickinson is the only man who has lived since Washington, 
and the only man, it may well be said, who ever will live, who 
could with truth say that he could, if he had chosen, have been 
President of the United States. In 1852 he was offered the 
Presidential nomination, and, had he accepted it, would have 
been elected, as subsequent events demonstrated; but he mag- 
nanimously declined the proffered honor in view of what he then 
deemed his honorary obligation to another. 

Since his retirement from the Senate of the United States he 
has had the offer of several distinguished positions : Collector of 
this Port, Commissioner to settle the Oregon Boundary, Judge of 
the Court of Appeals of New-York, all which he declined. 

Day after to-morrow (April 20th) will be the anniversary of the 
day which, after all, Mr, Dickinson himself regarded as the most 
memorable of his life. On that day the great uprising of the 
people at Union Square, in this city, took place. Mr. Dickinson, 
on the morning of that day left his house, over two hundred 
miles distant, for the sole purpose of being present and taking 
part on that great occasion ; and well do I remember his appear- 
ance, as he arrived in his travelling dress, and covered with the 
dust and smoke of a long railroad journey, just as the meeting 
was being organized. He came under the inspiration of a pure 
and exalted patriotism, and it may well be imagined how his en- 
thusiasm kindled into the highest glow when he found himself 
speaking in the shadow of the statue of Washington, and under 
the folds of the flag suspended over it, that had just been brought 
from Fort Sumter by the noble Anderson and his brave com- 
panions. The address he then delivered was of exceeding' 
power and eloquence. It is to be remembered that he then 
belonged to the party, and to the " strictest sect " of the party, 
opposed to that then in power, and that, as a necessary conse- 
quence, his example and his teachings were of ten-fold influence. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAE OF NEW-YORK. 47 

If all who were present at, and actually participated in that meet- 
ing, and all who then sympathized with it, had remained firm in 
the faith and true to the spirit of that occasion, the war of the 
rebellion would have been of comparatively brief duration — vast 
amounts of treasure would have been saved, and the lives of 
hundreds of thousands of our patriot heroes would have been 
spared. He persevered and continued steadfast to the end, and 
did more, it may with truth be said, for the preservation of the 
Union and the overthrow of the rebellion, than any other single 
individual. His fellow-citizens very soon gave him the most 
flattering testimony of their appreciation of his merit and his 
services; in 1861 he was elected Attorney-Greneral of New-York 
by the unprecedented majority of nearly one hundred thousand. 

How grateful it was to him to witness the glorious results of 
the efforts of himself and his compatriots for the maintenance of 
the Union and the preservation of the Nation I And if it is given 
to him now to know what is doing here, we may feel well assured 
that nothing would be more satisfactory to him than the mention 
of his career since the 20th of April, 1861. 

How awfully sudden, Mr, Chairman, the departure of our 
friend ! On Monday, in the vigorous performance of his official 
duty in this very Hall — on Thursday his spirit returned to Him 
who gave it. And how vividly should this event remind us of 
the lesson, so often taught and so little heeded, of the uncertainty 
of life! 

His character unsullied throughout life, presenting an uniform 
example of industry, perseverance, integrity — his sincerity and 
honesty acknowledged by all, and forming the basis of his power- 
ful personal influence — we have in him a model worthy of imita- 
tion everywhere ; and his history, from its beginning to its end, 
may well be studied by every ingenuous and high spirited youth 
of the Republic. 

Nothing could be more grateful to me personally than to have 
the opportunity of paying this feeble tribute of respect to the 
memory of one who rose from obscurity to the highest position, 



48 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 

who exhibited so much intellectual power and so much moral 
worth ; who, in his own person, presented so shining an illustra- 
tion of the kindly effects of our free government on the individual 
man ; who, in the time of his country's peril, stood manfully forth 
for her defence and salvation ; and who was so eminently entitled 
to the respect, esteem and gratitude of his countrymen. 

REMARKS OP GENERAL JOHN A. DIX. 

Mr. President, — 

I have come, not without hesitation, to take part in 
this meeting ; for, although my admission to the Bar of New-York 
dates as far back as 1824, many years have elapsed since I with- 
drew from the practice of the law, and I have become unknown 
as a member of the profespion. But I have yielded to the re- 
flection that my association in the Senate of the United States 
with our deceased friend, during five annual sessions of Congress, 
makes my presence here not altogether out of place, and enables 
me to speak of his many excellences of mind and heart with the 
advantage of a somewhat close and prolonged acquaintance. I 
believe I may truly say of Mr. Dickinson, that at every period of 
his life — from its first unassisted beginnings to the full develop- 
ment of his intellectual powers — he was a man of more than 
ordinary vigor, intelligence and determination. He went out into 
the battle of life with no other armor than his own indomitable 
courage, and triumphed over all the obstacles to his success by 
the force of a steady and unwavering resolution. His walk may 
be said to have been in the open arena of intellectual conflict, re- 
lying less on resources gathered by abstraction and study, than on 
the knowledge gained by observation and experience in the ever- 
shifting scenes of active life, where men are brought into per- 
petual contact with each other ; and it was to this practical dis- 
cipline during the period of half a century, that he owed his 
efficiency and success in his professional and political career. His 
familiar acquaintance with men, their business, their interests, 
their pursuits, their habits of thought, and the influences by which 



PKOCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 49 

they are most commonly governed, made him always prepared 
to take part in popular movements, always ready to act with de- 
cision, and always capable of speaking with point and eflfect. 

Kindred to these qualities, and almost inseparable from them, 
were a boldness in action and a fearlessness in speech very rarely 
surpassed. I never knew a man more free from all concealment. 
What he thought of men or measures, he never hesitated to speak. 
There was nothing about him of what the world calls policy ; 
nothing of what the phrenologists call secretiveness ; nothing 
clandesdine, nothing tortuous ; but every thing fair, open and di- 
rect. In controversy he might have been rough with an adversary ; 
but he would have scorned to circumvent him by hidden or un- 
worthy arts. 

A man with characteristics like these could not be without 
ardent admirers and devoted friends ; and that he possessed social 
virtues, of which the outer world could know little or nothing, 
but which his intimate associates appreciated at their true value, 
is manifest from the universal sorrow caused by his death in the 
town in which he lived, and in which the whole population, with 
a common and spontaneous accord, have, as stated by Judge Bos- 
worth, clad their dwellings in the habiliments of mourning. 

Such public demonstrations of respect go very far to embalm 
in the memory of a community the virtues of those to whom they 
are paid. But, sir, there is something higher and better. The 
estimation in which a man is held at his own fireside, is the best 
evidence of his purity and worth. No man was more beloved by 
his family than Mr. Dickinson ; no family was more blessed than 
his in the bountiful affection it received and returned. We need 
no other proof of the truth of what I say than the lines, full of deep 
feeling and poetic grace, read by Judge Pierrepont at the opening 
of this meeting. Sir, it is one of the greatest of posthumous tri- 
umphs for those who have been prominent in public affairs, when 
the appreciation of their excellences and the sorrow for their loss 
grow more intense as we recede from the circumference of the 



50 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 

great circle -within which they moved, and draw nearer to the 
centre where they were most familiarly known. 

You have, no doubt, noticed, Mr. President, that this year has, 
thus far, been one of extraordinary mortality among men ranging 
in age from three score years to three score years and ten. 
Whether it be from the severity or the changefulness of the 
season, or some special atmospheric influences, that death has 
made such unusual havoc with them, we know not. But we do 
know that numbers have been struck down, almost without warn- 
ing, and apparently in the fulness of their strength. It was so 
with Mr. Dickinson. It is but a few days since he was mov- 
ing about among vis, in the active discharge of his official duties, 
with a frame which the hand of time seemed scarcely to have 
touched, except in blanching somewhat more prematurely and 
completely than with most men of his age, the flowing hair by 
which his general appearance was so conspicuously marked. 

But, sir, 1 must not draw too largely on the indulgence of the 
gentlemen assembled here. My purpose was to offer, in the 
briefest manner, my tribute to the common stock of sadness for 
the sudden death of the departed statesman, and of sympathy 
with his sorrowing friends. Having stood side by side with him 
in the Senate Chamber at an eventful period in our history, not 
always agreeing with each other in opinion, never differing in 
unkindness, always cherishing for him a sincere respect, which 
I have reason to believe was as sincerely returned, it was thought 
that a few words from me in remembrance of our former associa- 
tion would neither be inappropriate nor unacceptable to the 
gentlemen assembled here, though their professional avocations 
brought them much nearer to him than myself in the closing 
scenes of his life. Having performed this office — a grateful and 
yet a sorrowful one, as all such offices are — I desire to make a 
single concluding remark. When we pass in review the varied 
incidents of his life — his youth of earnest and persevering labor, 
his manhood of official and forensic activity, his public services, 
the social position he occupied in his latter years as the well- 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 51 

earned reward of half a century of unremitting toil, and, above 
all, his fidelity to the cause of the Union through all vicissitudes 
— by conciliation as long as there was any hope of a peaceful 
solution of sectional controversy, and by a zealous and patriotic 
devotion to the Government when its existence was threatened 
by force when we regard him under all these phases of his 
valuable life, we may truly say that a remarkable man has gone 
from amongst us, and that his career is a distinguished example 
of successful effort, well directed and well sustained, in the 
acquisition of official and professional fame. 

ADDRESS OF WILLIAM M. EVARTS, Esq. 

Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Judiciary and of the Bar, — 

As we have been interested listeners thus far to Chief 
Justice Bosworth, who brings to us knowledge of the early life of 
the eminent man whose decease we meet to lament, and to the 
observations of Mr. Kirkland respecting his professional career, 
who has a wide range of knowledge, situated as he was in the 
earlier part of his own professional life, a witness of his exertions 
and his success, also to the history which General Dix has given 
of the public labors and political distinctions of Mr. Dickinson, 
I can find but one reason why, from this assembly of the Bar, I 
should have been asked by the Committee to bear a share, so 
grateful, indeed, to me, on this commemorative occasion — and that 
is in the fact that in the last scenes of the efforts at our bar of this 
lawyer, this public man, this public officer, I bore a part. For it 
was in the case of so great public importance now pending before 
his Honor, Judge Betts, in which the Government was represented 
by the District Attorney, Mr. Dickinson, and the claimants by my- 
self, that his last appearance in public, his last exertions in the 
labors and duties of life, took place. At the adjournment of the 
Court on Monday of this week, I left it, by your Honor's indulgence, 
to perform the duty of attending the funeral of a deceased relative 
in a neighboring State, and Mr. Dickinson, it seems, went to meet 
that death which now brinjjs us hei-e. In these strenuous contests 



52 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK, 

of our profession, death comes in a more or less impressive form 
always, to those who are active and vigorous in the exercise of the 
duties and labors of our calling, and to all of us the death of 
Governor Dickinson was impressive, for his robust frame, his 
vigorous constitution, his unbroken health, his moderate age, 
attracted as little as to any one, solicitude or expectation of 
his passing away from us. But to me who, in this last of 
his conflicts, was his opponent, it seems as it were in one 
of the contests of the ancient games, when one should find 
the swift runner dropping at his side in the cramp of death, or 
the strong wrestler's spent life yielding in the last struggle 
of the combat. Mr. Dickinson was a new comer to this bar, 
but he had been preceded by a distinguished reputation as a 
lawyer and as a public orator, so that at once he assumed, in 
the recognition of the community and of our profession, an emi- 
nent position, when the high station to which the Government had 
called him brought him here as a resident and a leader for the 
Government in all its public cases, as well as in the routine of the 
business of the oflice of District Attorney. This, for the first time, 
introduced him to the personal and social acquaintance of any 
considerable number of our citizens, and I think that every one 
who knows the facts will agree with me in saying that, in the 
domestic circles and the social life of this great community, he 
won universal favor by the manliness and sincerity of his bearing 
and conduct. Mr. Dickinson impressed everybody as an honest 
man and as an earnest man, and his honorable poverty, which in 
his youth led him forward to such great services, attended 
him during his life, and is at the close still the companion of his 
unsullied fame. In a community — in a nation — which, of late, at 
least, has shown so much of that greed of wealth which is sure to 
accompany so rapid a development of its resources, this is un- 
doubtedly a great tribute to one who has had so many opportuni 
ties, so many reasonable occasions, as the world goes, for having 
made advantage to himself out of his services to the public. Mr. 
Dickinson impresses us all, too, as a man who was altogether on 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW- YORK. 58 

one side ; not partly on one side and partly on another ; and I 
need not say that, in any manly estinnate of public duty or private 
conduct, that is a character entitled to respect and affection, 
and sure to command them. 

My first personal knowledge of Mr. Dickinson grew out of the 
fact that, in the political agitations of 1850 and 1851, he was 
tlirown mainly into a co-operation with the great leaders of the 
party of which I was an humble member, in company with the 
great leaders of the Democratic party, of which he had always 
been a prominent, zealous and efficient advocate. The great tie 
which brings men together, and which was so conspicuously ex- 
hibited in the notable letter of Mr. Webster to Mr. Dickinson, 
at that time, brought together many men who, in the traditions or 
in the habits of their respective parties, had looked upon one 
another with suspicion, distrust and hostility. Now, there. Gov- 
ernor Dickinson, in the active part he took, was wholly on one 
side of the great question then pending, which was of union or 
estrangement between the States. Mr. Webster was not so cor- 
rect in the horoscope he cast for Governor Dickinson's future life, 
in that touching note of his, which has been read, as, twenty 
years before, when there was the first dawn of the trouble and 
darkness which were to burst over this country, he was in his 
prayer for himself, that when he should last look upon the 
sun in the heavens, he might behold our flag, without a single 
star obscured or a single stripe erased or polluted, he might 
not look upon States dissevered and belligerent, or upon a 
land drenched witli fraternal blood. And, in the settlement of 
1850, that great statesman found a serene sky for his country, 
upon which he last looked in death. But you will remember that 
he foresaw for Governor Dickinson no probable occasion for as 
great fortitude, as great patriotism, as great services to this nation, 
as he had rendered in the pacification of our politics in 1850. 
Governor Dickinson lived to exercise the same spirit, to show the 
same determination to be wholly on one side, as much and 
throughout during the civil war, and for the Union first, always 



5-i TROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 

and forever, and to bear a part in civil life and in popular influ- 
ence of the greatest importance in this whole struggle, which, 
happily concluded, permitted him to look once more upon the 
flag of his country without a single star obscured or a single stripe 
erased or polluted, however many honorable wounds it may have 
received in the smoke and fire of battle. 

Now, Mr. President and gentlemen of the profession, we must 
pronounce the career of Governor Dickinson earnest, useful, dis- 
tinguished, eminent, famous ; yet it is made up of the materials of 
the life of Americans open to the same traits of character and the 
same powerful intellect, whoever shall possess them, and whoever 
shall exercise them. He possessed those traits of character, he 
exercised those forms of preparation, and he acted in those paths 
of conduct which, under institutions like ours, are the most useful 
to the country, and receive the largest share of popular favor 
and of public distinction. And yet there was not the slightest 
sacrifice of any private virtue, nor the least surrender of domestic 
duties. The judgment of his coimtrymen of his public conduct 
would have procured no such attendance about his obsequies as 
was shown at Binghamton, if his private character had been less 
pure, if his life had been less beautiful ; and, under the clear 
light of that judgment of the thousands that were within the 
range of personal knowledge of him, we see the estimate which 
our kind makes of such men ; for I am told that as the train 
which carried his remains, without the noise of bells or whistle 
of the engine, slowly and silently entered the station-house, 
thirty thousand of his fellow-citizens were there in sorrow to 
receive him, and that when the procession formed which fol- 
lowed him from his house through a distance of a mile and a half 
to the place of his burial, through this whole passage, from the 
home of his affections to that house appointed for all the living, 
there was one continuous unbroken stream of living affection and 
respect, that thus connected these two abiding })laces of mortality. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 55 

ADDRESS OF JAMES T. BRADY, Esq. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Bar, — 

Although I accepted with pleasure the invitation to attend 
this meeting, and to say a few words to my brethren to-day, 
I did so with a consciousness that the state of my voice, which 
you may readily notice, would prevent my making any extended 
remarks, even if in the absence of that difficulty I felt the 
slightest inclination to do so. I have listened with you 
attentively to the truthful, eloq[uent and touching addresses of 
the gentlemen who have preceded me, to the eloquent elegies and 
eulogies of a good man. I do not know, gentlemen, how those who 
have arrived at the same period of life in which I exist estimate 
their fellow-creatures. Like you, I honor greatness, genius and 
achievements ; but I honor more those qualities in a man's nature 
which show, that while he holds a proper relation to the Deity, he 
has also a just estimate of his fellow-men, and a kindly feeling 
towards them. I would rather have it said of me, after death, by 
my brethren of the bar, that they were sorry I had left their 
companionship, than to be spoken of in the highest strains of 
gifted panegyric. When I think of Mr. Dickinson, I think of a 
man who, I am quite sure, had no guile in his nature, and who 
died leaving no living creature to rejoice at his death ; and the 
man who can say that of himself, in the still watches of the night, 
when his conscience is inspected only by the Almighty and him- 
self, need not, in my imperfect view of religious sentiment and 
duty, be much afraid to die. 

I have no tear to shed over the grave of my friend, Mr. Dickin- 
son. He might have lived longer, and his constitution seemed to 
indicate that he would ; and for the sake of that dear partner of 
his young, as of his old affections, to whom Judge Bosworth so 
touchingly alluded, I wish that she had still retained his kindly 
attention and sweet society. But there is a time to die, appointed 
for all men. It was the will of the Creator that he should depart, 
and he has gone, gone gracefully and hopefully, out of this busy, 
distracting world. I say he went out of it gracefully, for we are 



56 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 

told to-day, (what I was delighted to hear,) that almost the last 
act of his life which could properly be communicated to the public 
here, is, that in this spring time, with the yision of his sick wife 
before him, he went out, not amongst the children of the ground, 
which the poet has so beautifully called "the stars of earth," 
for a cluster of flowers to place in her delicate hand, but he 
culled them out of his own heart, and he has gone to the presence 
of his Maker with the odor of that intellectual bouquet pervading 
his soul. 

I had the pleasure of enjoying the hospitality of Mr. Dickinson 
at Binghamton. It was on a memorable occasion — one of the 
many which illustrated that it seemed designed that, between him 
and myself, there should exist various and strong sympathies, 
political, professional and social. Mr. Dickinson and myself, as 
some gentlemen here may remember, belonged to the small, 
despairing band in this State who carried into the political contest 
of the North, for the last time, the flag of the South, contending 
that the South should enjoy to the utmost, and with liberal 
recognition, all the rights she could fairly claim under the 
Constitution of the United States. How small that band was, 
all familiar with the political history of this State can tell. I 
was at his home. Hospitality is known and has always been 
known among all conditions of men. The fact that we have 
enjoyed it in the residence of a friend often prevents breaches of 
acquaintance, which, but for that pleasant influence, might cease; 
and when once the foot has fallen upon the threshold with the 
certainty of welcome, it is the saddest thing in nature to feel 
that it can never press that threshold more. I observed there 
the beautiful relations between Mr. Dickinson and his family so 
well depicted by Judge Bosworth here. I saw him with his 
children entering into their sports. I witnessed his delight when 
music came to his pleased senses. I reC' 'gnized in him that which 
never can be absent from a man and leave him entirely lovable, 
that the boy was not yet extinct. I am very happy to hear from 
my friend. Judge Bosworth, that our distinguished brother had 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE EAR OF NEW- YORK, 0/ 

devoted himself to religion. It is refreshing, -when we know the 

tendency of the American people to infidelity, and which is a 

strongly marked characteristic of the times in which we live. I 

am sure he had a deep and an instructive sense of responsibility 

to Him 

" Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 

A hero perish or a sparrow fall." 

And I know, from his love of poetry, that he must have read 
and often repeated to himself those exquisite lines : 

" There is a God on high who stoops to feed 
The humming bird, and catch the tiny seed 
Which falls from lovely wild flowers, 
And in turn He'll garner up man's soul, 
That precious germ, which but takes root 
On earth to bloom on high, 
A bright immortal flow'r that cannot die." 

The proceedings were concluded by the movement of a resolu- 
tion by D. C. Birdsall, Esq., as follows: 

I could not, if I desired, add one word to the many eloquent 
eulogies that we have just listened to, respecting our dear departed 
friend. It has been truthfully said that he spent a long life in the 
useful service of his country. He has gone to that bourne from 
which no traveller returns, leaving as an inheritance to his dearly 
loved family but little except a spotless reputation, and a name 
that will live in fond remembrance in the hearts of the American 
people. I think it but proper that the citizens of New- York, 
more especially the bar, should take some action towards the 
erection of a mortuary memorial, in commemoration of his many 
virtues, that future generations may look upon it a^nd say, " Here 
lies the remains of a great and good man." It may truly be said 
of him, that '' his life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in 
him, that nature might stand up and say to all the world — This 
was a man." I, therefore, offer the following resolutions : 



58 PROCEEDIXGS OF THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 

Resolved, Tliat a Committee of five be appointed, consisting of Hon. Joseph 
S. Bosworth, Uon. John A. Dix, Hon. Henry E. Davies, Hon. Edwards Pierre- 
pont and Hon. William F. Allen, who shall be authorized to take such measures 
as may to them seem most expedient, to raise a fund for, and cause the erection 
of, a suitable monument to the memory of the late Daniel S. Dickinson. 

Resolved, That the committee so appointed correspond and act with like Com- 
mittees that m;iy hereafter be appointed for this purpose at Binghamton or else- 
where. 

The resolutions were unanimously adopted, and, on motion of 
Judge Pierrepont, the meeting adjourned. 

SAMUEL E. BETTS, 

Preside7}t. 

HENRY E. DAVIES, 
WILLIAM D. SHIPMAN, 
CHARLES L. BENEDICT, 
CHARLES P. DALY, 
GEORGE G. BARNARD, 
CHARLES MASON, 
NOAH DAVIS, 
ANTHONY L. ROBERTSON, 

Vice Presidents. 

SAMUEL BLATCHFORD, 
JAMES C. SPENCER, 

JSeo'etaries. 



PROCEEDINGS OP THE BAR OF NEW-YORK. 69 

New- York, June ll//«, 1866. 
Mrs. Daniel S. Dickinson, — 

Dear MadA]\[ : As Secretaries of a meeting of the members of 
the Bar of New- York, held at the City of New- York on the 18th 
of April, 1866, to pay their tribute of respect to the memory of 
their deceased associate and friend, Daniel S. Dickinson, it be- 
comes our duty to transmit to you the proceedings of the meeting, 
which we have caused to be embodied in an enduring shape in a 
pamphlet, which also contains many other testimonials of the 
high regard in which your lamented husband was held by all 
classes of his fellow-citizens. It was our privilege to be num- 
bered among his personal friends, and it is a gratifj'ing, though 
sad, satisfaction to us to be permitted to associate our names with 
this perpetuation of the memory of his many virtues. 

We are, with great respect. 

Your obedient servants, 

SAMUEL BLATCHFOKD, 
JAMES C. SPENCER. 



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